


Good Girl Faith

by Silberias



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Because of Reasons, F/M, reasons called Ship Oberyn with Everyone in Westeros because that would make him happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3728680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To lessen the sting of what the other Lords Paramount plan on doing, Lysa Tully's betrothal to Lord Jon Arryn is broken in favor of giving her to Prince Oberyn of Dorne. </p><p>A world where Baelish doesn't live and where Lysa isn't driven mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Girl Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alijah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alijah/gifts).



> I think Lysa and Oberyn would have gotten along, before everything that was done to Lysa. I also think Oberyn would have flipped out if he'd gotten wind of what Hoster intended on doing to Lysa.

It was a secret alliance--one to kill King Aerys and put Prince Rhaegar on the throne. It came at the cost of the man taking up a centuries-dead Targaryen tradition of polygamy but such was the way of coups and revolutions. Oberyn himself had been sent here, to Riverrun where the plot was being nurtured by the eminent Lord Hoster Tully and Lord Tywin Lannister. Both men had daughters they wanted to advance--eldest girls who looked at and understood the importance of Elia's daughter being the future Crown Princess, and those men both intended to nip such thoughts in the bud.

Lady Cersei, who was thankfully not in attendance save for her portrait, and Lady Catelyn were each being traded like so much chattel. Lord Hoster's daughter would go to the North as Brandon Stark's wife, while Lady Cersei would be joined in matrimony to Prince Rhaegar along with Lady Lyanna Stark. This left ties to Dorne needing strengthening for while polygamy and its' fellow faces were understandable to Dornishmen there was still the matter of Elia's place as Rhaegar's beloved wife being usurped.

And so it had been Lord Hoster who had given up an alliance with the Vale by offering the hand of his second daughter, Lady Lysa, to Prince Oberyn.

When he'd rode through the gates of Riverrun and looked upon her, a woman flowered but still a girl of four and ten, Oberyn had known from her bearing and stiffness. She loved another but was a Tully-- _Family, duty, honor_ and all that rot--and so smiled at him when he was introduced. There was another thing he'd known when watching her at table later that evening--she was with child, even if she might not yet know it. The knowledge had sent a happy thrill through him. Little Lysa had a spirit of her own, and knew how to lust.

Oberyn had waited another week before going to Lord Hoster about it. The Tully man had raged and spit vitriol and fire that Oberyn would so impugn Lady Lysa's honor, but in the man's eyes Oberyn saw that he knew. He knew of the child in Lysa's belly, and he likely also knew who had put it there. It was then that Oberyn remembered something about these people from north of the Boneway--they detested bastards, killed them before they drew breath if possible, with little regard to the mother's feelings were she highborn or low.

"If you kill Lady Lysa's child I shall still marry her," he said, watching the small sag of relief in his future goodfather's shoulders, "but her children by me will never know the Tully words nor where their red hair comes from nor ever set eyes on Riverrun. They will grow up in Essos and speak the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and never walk on the soil of Westeros."

"What would you have me do? She isn't too far gone to rid herself of the child, and it would be cruel to let her birth it only to take it away from her," Lord Hoster reasoned, that slick and slimy reasoning that was so utterly foreign to Dornishmen. As if Oberyn needed more impetus to rescue his betrothed, more reason to never leave the company of Dornishmen or those of the Free Cities ever again.

"I would have you kill the babe's father, for he is a knave to have abandoned her to those who would have her drink tansy."

There was a long silence as Lord Hoster stared at him, jaw slack at the utter viciousness of the request. Oberyn easily saw the questions of why he would ever ask such a thing, and he tried to gentle his tone.

"She will birth a bastard even if I claimed it as my own lustful fumblings and a young mother giving premature birth, if he lives. He will know the truth, and I will not have him poison her life with his every breath. If one must die, Lord Hoster, I would have it be the one who bears blame."

"Blame? It is Lysa's own vapid, wayward heart that is to blame!" Lord Hoster's face grew almost as red as his hair in his sudden rage. He was used to his eldest girl and her pliant ways, and in the face of a woman with a Dornish spirit his path was unknown to him. Oberyn jumped up to stand when the other man did, much shorter than the riverlord but still intimidating in his own right as his voice echoed in the chamber from his shout.

"And who preyed upon that wayward heart? Who dared bed her under your own nose, get her with child, and leave her to your fury?! I want him dead, and that is the end of the discussion, Lord Tully!"

* * *

 

A green boy, barely even a man by age, was brought to see him before dawn the next morning. He confessed that he loved Lady Catelyn but she would have none of him, and so when Lady Lysa declared her feelings for him he had quickly settled on the Tully girl who _would_ have him. He'd thought, he said sullenly, that Lord Hoster would consent to marrying his second daughter to a minor lord's son and that the anticipated shame of a bastard would bolster his case.

Oberyn had nodded sympathetically through the tale--this one had tried to play the game, but had too few pieces and a poor understanding of the few he had. And, as so many who played poorly, the lad did not yet understand that anything less than a draw in the game often meant death. There was a part of him that, looking at young Petyr Baelish's face still round with boyhood, wanted to spare the boy's life. He'd already endured a savage wound at the hands of Lord Stark's son, still nursed it as it healed really, but claiming Lady Lysa's child as one of true birth would be adding piss to vinegar.

Nothing sweet ever came from such a mixture, even less so when it was allowed to distill for a generation.

Lord Hoster made a good show of horror later that afternoon when some of his guards found the fosterling Petyr Baelish dead in his rooms. A note of suicide stated he found it unbearable that Lady Catelyn would not return his feelings of love and affection, and that he hoped she learned her lesson for spurning him as she did. It was a cruel deception to place such blame on Lady Catelyn's shoulders but Oberyn turned his attention to her sister. Lady Lysa was strong, not wavering or crying out at the death of her lover, and it wasn't until Oberyn followed her to her rooms did she break down to weeping.

It was a broken heart--Baelish appeared to have killed himself over Catelyn, not Lysa who carried his child. He knew, as Lysa allowed him to hold her and rock her back and forth, that she would have known pain of some sort due to their marriage and that the child in her belly would either be painful to look on or comforting--but now she would be allowed that choice.

Lord Hoster would not send some servant bearing tansy tea for her to sip on.

"Lor--Prince Oberyn, I have to tell you something," she managed after her weeping had subsided. Her head was still tucked up under his chin, her hair smelling sweetly of orange oil.

"That you loved Petyr Baelish as your sister did not? I think I gathered as much, my lady, and you are right to grieve both him and his words." No one would ever know Baelish had been tricked into writing the note--that Oberyn had gently said that they were in the _River_ lands after all, and that he himself would run to Hoster Tully saying Baelish had jumped into the river and never surfaced, and that he would help Baelish run away with Lysa. No one would ever know that Baelish had been paralyzed with poison before his veins, from wrist to elbow, had been cut.

"N-n-no, I knew he--I knew he wanted Cat, I knew and I did it anyway. I," she curled a little tighter into a ball on his lap, her slippered feet resting on his lower thigh, "I let him put a babe in me, three moons ago. It--it will quicken soon," she finished in a rush, a barely controlled sob threatening to take the rest of her breath.

Oberyn leaned her back on one of his arms so he could see her face as he put a reverent hand on her belly. She was so young it might have been mistaken for the last fat of childhood but there was a certain firmness about the size of his fist there, low between her hips. Baelish had had dark hair, not so black as Oberyn's own, but even if he'd been as silver haired as a Targaryen Oberyn would have claimed Lysa's child as his own.

"I--"

"My father will make me get rid of it as soon as he knows," Lysa's voice was resigned and sad as she interrupted him, "you don't have to worry about--about a bastard." Oberyn managed a light chuckle at her words then. She was still grieving, but he had done a good thing here. If he and Doran had refused this alliance she would have gone to Lord Arryn who detested bastards and had had almost as many wives as the Lord of the Crossing but with an utter lack of children. This lovely girl would have been blamed for her husband's impotence.

"My lady, I have only the deepest love for bastards. Have they truly not told you of mine own children? I have four girls who would love another sibling, and more importantly a mother methinks. It is your choice if you would let this child," he pressed his hand softly against the firm spot on her belly, "grow up as Petyr Baelish's bastard. Just know that we have just enough explanations, defenses, and time to let it grow as my own first trueborn issue."

She was quiet, then, staring at him with her mouth hanging open. Her eyes, still red-rimmed from her tears, were wide and shocked but she made no move to leave her seat on his lap.

"You would do that? Raise another man's son as your own?" He grinned at her, reaching up to put an errant wave of coppery hair behind her ear.

"Yes. And if your lover had chosen you instead of your sister, I would have helped you escape with him. Now, if you are amenable we must be quick in getting ourselves wed and you to Dorne before certain lord fathers get wind how far along you are. You do not have to decide whose child this is," his hand dropped once more to her abdomen, "until later, though."

* * *

 

Lysa was great with child the next time he set eyes on her in the Water Gardens. The war had been short and brutish--only the Tyrells and Baratheons had stood with the King, but there were few armies that could stand against the combined might of the other five realms--and now Rhaegar ruled as King Rhaegar with a triumvirate of queens at his side, two of whom glowed with child already. Oberyn's uncle, who had been badly wounded during one of the last battles, had been relieved of his duty as a whitecloak but not dismissed from service to the royal family. Instead the man had donned a cloak of violet and married the dowager queen Rhaella and accompanied Oberyn back to Dorne.

His uncle and the former queen were both torn and haggard in their souls after their treatment by the Mad King and oddly enough his wife Lysa was a balm to their hurts. To Uncle Lewyn she told stories of Arianne's antics with Quentyn, bringing a smile to his now too-somber face. With Queen Rhaella she sat quietly, holding the woman's hand and telling her stories of noble knights and their fair ladies--or sometimes even fretting with the woman about the aches of pregnancy.

No one asked if Rhaella's unborn babe belonged to Aerys or Lewyn. To see Rhaella alone it suggested Aerys had put done one final evil to his sister-wife. To see the woman with Lewyn perhaps revealed the man's secret paramour of all these years--and it was good that such sights were confined to the palace of the Water Gardens, for they spoke volumes as to which of Queen Rhaella's children had lived and which had died.

It made Oberyn a little guilty that he'd murdered his wife's paramour and concealed the attack as he had. Lysa on the other hand was hesistant around him at first, the reminder of Petyr Baelish well shown in the kicking roundness of her belly, but he made an effort to be warm and sweet with her. If ever he slipped and started wondering who he might bring to his bed, he reminded himself of his wife who had had to give her lover up. He'd thought himself resigned to his fate of marriage until the maester had tried to make him leave her side when she'd begun laboring.

Only Queen _\--Princess_ , she insisted--Rhaella's quick hands had kept him from striking Maester Caleotte.

"You may have your way, Prince Oberyn, but you will not endanger the lives of your wife and child by addling the very one who is to bring them safely through this. Now, if you wish to bear witness to a woman's war you may but only if you do not lose your courage," she said, her words and tone so similar to his uncle's that he had obeyed her without truly hearing what she said. The thought burbled in the back of his mind that King Rhaegar was as much Mad Aerys' son as Lysa's child was Oberyn's.

"Please stay," Lysa whimpered, and Oberyn sat at her side to kiss her and stroke her hair back from her face.

"I will not leave you," he murmured, letting her hold his hand in a crushing grip. She kept his hand through much of the night, only barely able to open her hand away from his as the maester cleaned the newly born babe as dawn light filtered into the bedchamber. Lysa was a vision, her usually plain face made beautiful despite the redness of her cheeks and the sweat that had poured from her forehead, and she had looked as innocent as the Maiden as Maester Caleotte handed the screaming babe to Oberyn.

"A boy, my prince, healthy and strong despite coming early. In a score of years he will be fit enough to build a holdfast and raise up a cadet banner, wouldn't you say?" the man said as Oberyn looked at the little face. He'd hardly set eyes on Petyr Baelish, all things considered, but already he was sure that there was none of that man in Lysa's child.

"A white and orange princefish leaping before a red sun," he replied, stroking the soft little cheek before giving the boy to Lysa. Tears had welled up in her eyes as he'd spoken and he realized he'd never revisited the promise of allowing her to choose Rivers or Martell for her child's surname. Oberyn was about to apologize, the words halfway out of his mouth almost when she shook her head to quiet him.

"What do you want to name him, my lord?" she said, touching the red tuft of hair still damp from the maester's wash cloth and not even flinching from the squalling of powerful--if only infant--lungs.

"You tell so many wonderful stories of knights and heroes, my lady, you would know a better name for him than I," he replied, feeling that he'd already taken Petyr Baelish from her and that this was only done in fairness.

"May I name him Lewyn?" Both Oberyn and Rhaella froze at the suggestion, startled more than anything. Lysa kept on as though she didn't notice, engrossed by trying to comfort her babe so that he might find her breast and take his first milk. It was only as the moment stretched that she looked up at them, her eyes as blue as the Dornish sky in spring.

"If that pleases you, my lord," she quickly added, her bearing turning shy under their accidental scrutiny.

"My lady, I have not yet found anything about you that displeases me--I think I could spend my whole life looking and find nothing. Maester, record in your book Lewyn II Martell--trueborn son of Oberyn and Lysa. Aunt," he turned his attention to Rhaella, "if you would inform the rest of the family? We will host them tomorrow for breakfast, but for now I think my wife and I would spend some time alone with Prince Trout."

"The girls," Lysa's thready voice interrupted Rhaella's departure, "the girls may come in and see their brother. Have the kitchens send breakfast here," with a nod the woman was gone, leaving them quite alone in the dawn light. Oberyn gently took one of Lysa's hands and laid a kiss to her knuckles. A boy named for his favorite uncle was certainly a gift he could not repay her for.

"The Sand Snakes are to have a River Trout for a brother," Lysa said softly, gasping happily when Lewyn finally took to her breast.

* * *

 

He'd bedded Lysa once before, for their wedding night, and then sent her to Dorne while he went to war. It wasn't until Lewyn, or Prince Trout as he and Lysa called him to avoid confusion, was past his fourth month that Oberyn shared a bed with his wife. Though Oberyn was starved for affection Lysa needed time to recover from birthing their son--and it hadn't mattered in any case, because they hardly knew one another.

Lysa's body, still round and soft from carrying Lewyn, was a wonder to him then the first night she crawled into his bed in naught but her bedsheet wrapped around her. Her fumblings with her paramour left her experienced in some ways, but innocent in others. For instance, Oberyn quickly realized that she'd never reached any particular height of actual pleasure--that youthful Petyr Baelish had been as all teenage boys were. Selfish, awkward, self-conscious and for lack of a better word blind to the treasures of another person's body let alone their own.

Oberyn was more than happy to oblige in helping his wife learn such things, and it was no great surprise to anyone around them that she bore him girls for the whole wretched winter and half-hearted spring following King Rhaegar's coronation. She nearly died bringing the last, a son, into the world and the maesters said she would never quicken again. It was a sad thing for them, in the privacy of their own rooms, but as Lysa healed so too had their hearts.

She'd borne him six children--seven including Lewyn--and he tried not to laugh when she would gloat this to her sister Catelyn who had only had five. It was telling, though, that it was a joyful thing because Lysa's happiness did not dim when Catelyn teased back that she'd given Lord Brandon three sons to Lysa's two.

Lewyn was the only one whose Tully heritage showed in his face and form--he was a head taller than every man in the essdorne, only meeting men eye to eye if they were from Skyreach or Kingsgrave, and his hair was as bright as blood above Tully blue eyes. Elia, Labynna, twins Minisa and Mirryn, and Loreza were all alike to Lysa in shape and height but were black of hair and eyes. Jonatyn, the only boy Oberyn Martell had fathered out of ten children spread between five different women, was as pale as his mother beneath black curls that framed pretty blue eyes.

It wasn't as though Tully blood wasn't strong--out of Lady Catelyn's five, only one had the dark brown locks of the Starks. It was just that Martell blood was often stronger.

"I thought I would run mad if I had to forsake Petyr, years ago," Lysa said to him one morning as they watched Lewyn walk hand in hand with Princess Daenerys. The two were courting quite against the wishes of the King, but he was far away from the Water Gardens and had quite enough on his plate as the seeds sown almost twenty years before had begun to sprout into princesses and princes just now coming of age.

"This place bled me of that violent obsession though. It was like I'd nearly drowned, taking lungfuls of clean air after being fished from the river. Whatever--whatever you said to Petyr that made him do what he did, I'm glad. Don't--" she paused, not looking up at his shocked face, "don't tell me what happened. We've had such peace, I don't want to descend into that madness again. Lord Arryn would have never supported King Rhaegar, and I would have been married to that old lech. Lewyn would have been drowned in blood and washed away--and it would have snapped Petyr. And me," she added at the last, "and me."

"You were ever a Martell, my darling," he murmured as he kissed her temple, "even before we met and married. You would have persevered, I know it to be so." It was the closest he had ever come to having to admit to murdering the paramour of her youth, and through their lives together he would never come so close ever again.

What was the blood of one man in the face of every kingdom of the Seven bleeding bone white from rebellion and strife?

**Author's Note:**

> So how did you like that? Let me know! If you want of course :D


End file.
